As personal information is increasingly disseminated to marketers, a debate is growing over the implications this type of data collection has on personal privacy, free speech, and democracy.

The Massachusetts ruling could be an indication of more to come in the consumer privacy debate. Christopher Wolf, director of the Privacy and Information Management practice group at the law firm Hogan Lovells, urges marketers to pay attention to the Massachusetts decision as a precedent has been set for customers to sue companies for privacy infringement.

"We're going to see more of [these types of lawsuits] in part because of the growing number of studies that indicate how easy it is to identify someone with very limited amounts of information," Wolf said.